Score loss and enemy bases

[Eddie]

C) If I could I would! I'm in January, second year, and I still have to find the guild stapler, so no workshop. I have a guildmaster in prison, though. I wish I could trade him for some office supplies 

I had a look at your save. Some very obvious things you can do better.
You have a second base, but no radar in it. This is the essence of your score problem, that you did not detect the excavator. Radar is important, not caring about radar coverage is the root of your problem. When you build a new base, the first three buildings need to be: burrow, radar, hangar. The burrow has storage and housing so you can put troops. Radar is obviously for radar coverage. And hangars you need to get expeditions, which you need for radar coverage.
More radar = more missions = better score.
You did not build any radar in your whole campaign, and the game rightfully punishes you for it. Radar coverage = game progression.

You have chateau researched, you have 117 apples in store. You have 85 workshop space, yet only have 30 runts hired. You apparently do not realize how much money you can make by selling wine.
10 runts producing wine make a profit of roughly 350k per month. You have 55 free workshop space, so you miss out on 2 mil per month. And you can still build 2 more extractors in your main base to make even more money.

Next, you have 3 free lab space. Brainers actually earn you money too because reasearch gives score and score gives money. It depends on what you research, but roughly brainers make about the same money as their upkeep costs. So it is important to go to maximum brainer capacity as early as possible. If you don't have maximum brainers by the end of the third month, you are definately spending your money wrong.

Next on money: You don't need to stockpile hellerium. You have 126 hellerium, but nothing that actually uses it. Sell it all, buy brainers from the money. Same goes for plastasteel, ship engines and slave AIs. Keep a few, but sell the rest. Right now you are paying workers to keep stuff you should have sold a long time ago.

One more money thing: You have a weed farm. Weed farms actually make less money than regular farms. I didn't want to believe it, but this is the way the game is designed right now. Only build weed farms when you actually need the weed for something. They don't make money.

[Rubber Cannonball]

Weed farms actually make less money than regular farms. I didn't want to believe it, but this is the way the game is designed right now. Only build weed farms when you actually need the weed for something. They don't make money.

I thought the plantations only made money at the end of the month with its negative maintenance cost.  So long as you harvest the sectoweed before the end of the month and don't plant the next batch until the 1st of the month, you should get the plantation maintenance at the end of the month.

Farmers should  know when to plant and when to harvest!   

[Iazo]

This is exactly right. Time it well and you get weed PLUS basic plantation money.

Time it poorly and....well, you don't.

[Eddie]

My mistake, I'm not an experienced farmer.

So the economics of weed farming is:
Weed plantation on top of a plantation costs 35k, converting it to harvest 25k and the actual harvest 5k. From this you get 240 sectoweed, minus the 12 you needed to build the weed plantation. These 228 sectoweed you can sell for 500 each for a total of 114k. Subtract the operation costs and you get a profit of 49k, plus the 100k from the plantation if you farm correctly.

So weed plantations make your plantations 50% more profitable.

For comparison, on the four tiles of the plantation you could also build two extractors and two barracks to have 40 runts make and sell flame arrows, for a monthly profit of 230k. 300k if you have a still in the base and can make grog. Initial cost is way higher than for farms, but having 40 runts is also much more useful.